We had a busy 4th of July weekend. We drove up to Bates City to Scott's parents house. We did the usual trip down to the creek, roasted hot dogs on the fire pit, played king of the stump and climbed on the firewood. Scott's parents live in a neighborhood in the country (some people may not think it's in the country, but if you see deer, hear wild turkeys and are surrounded by trees, that's the country to me). We saw deer, rabbits, spiders and a big black snake!

On the Fourth, We went out to Powell Gardens and let the boys cool off in the interactive fountains. Then Mick and Jackie came out to celebrate that night. The kids enjoyed riding their bikes and big wheels, and playing with the dump trucks outside. We shot off fireworks, not as much as others do, but the kids thought it was a good show. Favorites included "parachutes" that shot up straight in the air, exploded and then a parachute came down; "ladybugs" that spun around making a zipping noise and then shot up in the air (although we had a few defective ones that shot OUT instead of UP), and smoke bombs.

Saturday, the boys spent most of the day with Grammy and Grandpa at Burr Oaks, a nature center, while Scott and I went to lunch and a movie.

First Day of Summer

Happy First Day of Summer! Here’s how we spent this sunny, beautiful day.

We played in the sand outside (mom even let us turn the hose on to make sandcastles).

We wrote with chalk.

 We rode bikes (well, Adam did…Zach “just watched”).

We blew bubbles.
We made “breakfast muffins” for a snack.
We went to a neighbor’s birthday party and played on the slip-n-slide and swing set and ate ice cream cake.
We watched nascar racing on TV (but everyone fell asleep). 
We ate dinner at Jason’s Deli.

We made it back home in one piece. We left Galveston on Friday and spent the night in Dallas. The kids swam in the pool, which all the adults thought was extremely cold. We left Dallas on Saturday morning and that is when the whining began. First there was a lego incident in which Adam cried because he only had THREE legos and Zach wouldn’t share with him. Zach said he needed ALL 31 of his legos (they counted) and even more to make his building. Then Zach was upset because he bottom hurt from sitting in his seat for so long. Luckily, they both fell asleep in the afternoon.

It’s our first week back to the real world after a trip to the beach. The boys had a hard time figuring out what to do, and seemed to be fighting with each other a lot. It’s rained about every night, and today was the first day we were able to try out our new sprinkler. The neighbor boys came out this afternoon and they all switched between our sprinkler and their blow-up little pool, so that kept them busy for a while.

We ran errands to the post office and Target, to buy some baseball pants for our first T-ball game tonight. We also picked out new backpacks, because the boys' Nemo backpacks are too small now. I was unsuccessful in trying to pick out a generic backpack. They both insisted on getting a Transformers backpack. I gave in only because I was tired of arguing, and it only had the word “Transformers” on it and not some mean picture of Megatron, Optimus Prime, Bonecrusher or Frenzy or any of the other Transformers.

The game went well. We had a practice on Wednesday, and Zach said he didn’t want to play T-ball because it was boring. So he didn’t participate in the practice. We had to bribe him with a snack to get him to play in the game tonight, but once he got there he was a willing participant. They both hit good balls, and even were able to stop some in the outfield. Zach is the one at the tee, and Adam is running into home base! It was 85 degrees during the game…and it was hot! I can’t imagine what it’s going to be like in July.

Two funny things Zach said today:
He fell going up the deck stairs and scraped his shin. So he told me that he never wanted to go up these stairs again because they were too “pinchy.”

Then, he told me I smelled good. I said “Like what? A flower?” thinking he smelled my lotion or something. “No…like a chicken salad sandwich,” he said.

Zach also wore BLACK underwear under his WHITE baseball pants to the game.

It's Tuesday, June 3. All the kids were awake by about 7am this morning. Zach woke up on the wrong side of the bed, and nothing was right for him until we went out to the beach. Adam and Zach were clinging onto Scott and having a ball as the waves broke around them. After a while Zach got cold so he came and sat on my lap and warmed up in a blanket. Then he did his usually digging and playing the sand. Steve brought a shovel, which is the hit of the beach. Adam likes to use it to make a big long line in the sand. We built another sandcastle with a tunnel, but it didn’t last long once Matthew came over to see what we were doing. Katie found a little tiny frog and Matthew had fun “jumping” along side of it. The surf was pretty choppy again today, but the boys didn’t seem to mind.

In the afternoon we headed out to the Galveston Port and took the Bolivar Ferry. We saw that the beach flag was red, which means that adult swimmers should only go waist deep, and children and non swimmers should stay at the shore. We watched all the people drive their cars onto the ferry, which can hold 75-80 cars (Mom asked the deckhand). The ferry blew the whistle, which made everyone jump. The sea gulls and pelicans flew along side of us, so close we could almost touch them. We saw a few dolphins jumping in the water too. Afterwards, Scott grilled steaks and chicken and we had s'mores and ice cream for dessert. This picture is taken on our deck with cousin Jake, Adam and Zach enjoying thier s'mores'

The kids went to bed, but apparently were not quiet because Uncle Steve had to lay down the law and told them that the next person who talked was going to be removed from the room. He said he didn’t hear a peep after that. The adults stayed up and watched CNN's coverage of the historical presidential race.

Wednesday, June 4, 2008
We woke to sunny skies but blustery winds. The tide had come up so far that two of our beach chairs, our fox hole shovel and some toys were buried in the sand. We dug out the beach chairs and shovel, but couldn’t find the toys. The surf was even more choppy than yesterday, and Steve lost his sun glasses in the water. We came in and had sandwiches and colored pictures and played legos. Matthew and Steve laid down for their naps; Adam and Zach are playing upstairs; Oma, Papa, Katie and Jake went into town to see the Hurricane of 1900 historical movie; Scott went for a drive and Sherry is ordering a new swimsuit online.

Tonight, Scott and Steve are taking the older kids to play miniature golf in town.

We are on day four of our summer vacation. We left around 9 am Thursday morning for the 3 hour trip to Oklahoma City where we met up with Sherry and her family. The boys discussed who their favorite transformers were (Adam’s is Optimus Prime and Zach’s is Bumblebee, both part of the Autobots who are good transformers) and we played “I spy” and “20 questions.”

We ate lunch at Steve’s parents house and then everyone did a switcheroo with the traveling arrangements…I rode with Sherry, Katie and Matthew and Scott rode with Jake, Steve, Adam and Zach. It we pretty uneventful until Zach threw up in the car about 2 hours outside of Dallas. Then we hit rush hour in Dallas and that added about 30 minutes onto our already long trip. We made it to the hotel in Dallas where Zach stayed in the room with me, and everyone else went downstairs to eat. It was lucky that our room was right by the guest laundry because I had to wash Zach’s clothes and car seat cover. Yuck!

Friday, we headed out for Galveston. We stopped at a really cool rest stop that had lots of trees, and indoor eating area, playground, lake and nature trail. After we ate, the kids went over to the play ground to burn off some energy. I took Zach to the bathroom, and as we were walking back he stopped in and said “there’s something that hurts in my bottom” and dropped his drawers in the parking lot.

We arrived in Galveston around 4 pm and headed straight out to the water. The boys loved it…it was their first trip to the ocean. Dad went and scrounged up some food (pizza, salad and pasta) and we ate out on the deck overlooking the ocean. All the older kids (minus Matthew) slept in the same room which had bunk beds and two twin beds.

On Saturday, we headed out to the beach again both in the morning, and after rest time in the afternoon (we had to watch the space shuttle launch via internet first). We built a sandcastle and body surfed in the water. We had grilled chicken, hot dogs and hamburgers for dinner, with s'mores made from the fire of the grill. Then we went out crab hunting. The boys all donned their “headlamps” (lights on a stretchy cord that goes around your head) and we found some pretty big ones. They scurried about and tried to get away from us, while we all “eeked” and screeched as they hurried across our feet. A couple of the big ones made themselves look real big by standing up real tall and raising their pinchers.